


Moonshot

by coaldustcanary



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space Opera, F/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-15 07:03:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13608108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coaldustcanary/pseuds/coaldustcanary
Summary: He needs her help and her belief to save the galaxy. Shemightbe willing to give him a bit of each.Maybe.





	Moonshot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [subjunctive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/subjunctive/gifts).



> The setting here is very loosely based on the gritty sci-fi 'verse of The Expanse (TV). With a prompt of any kind of AU-verse I could imagine on offer, I couldn't resist the idea of ASOIAF...IN SPACE, and Jon Snow as a Martian Marine.

Asha doesn’t see him when he walks in; she’s too busy watching Rook and Grimtongue play at the fingerdance. Dale jeers the timidity of both competitors and the pace of the flashing knife speeds up in response, drawing the attention of her crew and a smattering of barked wagers, and she’s too busy calculating odds to note his entrance. It’s not until Qarl nudges her – so softly he barely moves, and without a flicker of expression changing on his soft and mild face – that she notices the one she suspects they’re here to meet. She marks him out of his element the moment she takes him in, peering about this rough trader’s bar in an unfashionable corner of the Lunar colony. He wears his hair overlong and shaggy, like an Earther, and his scuffed and scruffy clothing wouldn’t be out of place on a laborer from the Belt, but his back is too straight, and his frame too heavy to be either. The newcomer’s face is solemn and still, but she can’t help but notice the faint lines of tension around his mouth, and the way his gray eyes study the room with a steady sort of precision. Despite all the little things that give him away, he does make a fair attempt at blending in.

It’s almost a shame, really.

Asha catches the boy’s gaze casually with a toothy smile, freezing him in place. She pitches her voice effortlessly over the rhythmic pounding of blades driven into the cracking tabletop and the tinny wail of the alt-synth-pop protest anthem of the Astroid Belt’s latest idol blasted via a straining sound system.

“Front and center, Marine!” she sing-songs, curling her fingers to beckon him to the tables where she sprawled with her crew. The fingerdance continued, but men and women all around her – far less given to subtlety than Qarl – shift and surreptitiously touch fingertips to blades and blasters only barely concealed. The newcomer stalks toward their table with the precision of a soldier but barely keeping his frustration under control, and Asha finds herself intrigued.  The way the boy clenches his jaw and near growls at her performance is a delight – she’s missed that kind of response, tiring as she is of Qarl’s limitless patience and the way that Tris alternately broods and moons after her like a lovesick puppy.

Business first, then pleasure, she chides herself silently.

“If this is a game to you, I ought not have come,” he says, and she admires how little of his obvious anger is present in his voice, which is low and rough and altogether pleasing. He has a long face, marked with a clutch of scars around his eye and shadowed with both weariness and dark stubble. She wonders idly if his mouth does anything but frown. She smiles at him, shaking her head – it would be good fun game to find out.

“What isn’t a game, Martian? All you need know is that I’m willing to play. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

Despite the sullen set to his mouth, it’s the desperation that wins out. He young and fresh despite his world-weary demeanor, and she’s intrigued, despite her better judgment. When Asha kicks a chair out from under the table in the boy’s direction he takes it, glowering at her all the while, and her smile widens fractionally.

“So you’ll do it. How much?” he asks gruffly, trying to pin her with his gaze, but only showing Asha just how much he needs her answer.

“We’ll just have to see, Jon Snow.”

* * *

He’s a fighter, this boy, and seeing underneath his armor – literally and figuratively – is as much fun as she ever could have imagined. Once the decks of the _Black Wind_ are below her feet once again, she wastes little time before curling her fingers in Snow’s shirt, clutching him fast and dragging him bodily against her. He stumbles – too many G-force shifts in too short a period, she guesses – and she hauls him up bodily to fuse her mouth against his, first sliding her tongue eagerly against his lips, then nipping at them sharply. To his credit he responds after only a moment’s hesitation and oh, he still might be frowning at her – she’s counting on it, really, if this proves too easy she was sure to be disappointed – but he presses hard into her with a muffled growl, the prickle of his stubble sparking pleasantly against her cheek. Asha winds her free hand into his dark hair and tugs, baring his neck to her gaze and more importantly the graze of her teeth as she idly licks the salt from the skin just above his collarbone.

“Easy, now, there’s a good boy,” she murmurs. She holds him still, then loosens her grip, stepping away but still tracing her hands over his shoulders and chest appreciatively, and nearly laughs as a faintly puzzled expression pulls at his brows. Asha tuts and licks the pad of her thumb, gently smoothing it over his raised eyebrow, smoothing it and fingering the tracery of scars there while he remains still and not a little uncertain.

“So eager, Sergeant. I do approve. I’m sure your superiors have always appreciated your enthusiasm.” Confusion gives way to a sullen sort of anger in his expression and she smiles as he searches for the right words to respond to her needling – it’s good that he’s still reaching for words at this point, the rest would come in time – even as she turns away from him, gesturing to the tiny cabin across the narrow hall.   

“That’s yours for the duration of our little journey. It’s not much, but I’m sure you’ll manage. You might even find it a step above what you’re used to, not having to share with your squadron for once.” She pats him gently on the shoulder before turning to her own door.

“Unless, of course, you’d care to see the captain’s quarters…?” she offers back over her shoulder with an arched brow.

He’s already turning away, but there’s reluctance in the set of his shoulders, and she enjoys the delicious mix of confusion, anger, and a hint of arousal playing across his face.

* * *

“I’m no Marine. Not anymore.”

Asha makes a show of seeing her current task through, checking and double-checking the coordinates before giving Hagen a nod to send him back to his duties, swiping her fingers through the air to examine the charts the _Black Wind_ provided, the three-dimensional array filling the room with the glow of the known systems. With a small gesture, she collapses the image spinning around them to just their trajectory, a small dot along faint blue arc, moving between Luna and Callisto with steady speed. The glowing arc bends across Jon Snow’s chest as he waits on her attention, standing at parade rest.

“Did you hear me, Captain?”

With an impatient flick of her fingers, the images disappear, and the glow of the room increases fractionally, making it easier to see the intensity on the boy’s face. He’s changed from the laborer’s garb he wore when they met to an unadorned black, the lining of a Marine’s space armor. It suits him, almost annoyingly well. She meets his gaze frankly, and sighs.

“So I gathered. If your report is accurate-“

“It is.”

“-it will mean war. Isn’t the Martian Navy just gagging for an excuse to attack Old Earth these days? It seems awfully convenient, this report. A new and mysterious alien threat sounds downright scripted. Quite a solid reason to raise the banners high and pile up ships with eager soldiers, and at the same time distract Earthers, Belters, Lunars…the whole damned system with another alien scare, only to attack when everyone’s watching the stars.” Asha leans back against the wall, crossing her arms over her chest, raising her chin at him.

“I would welcome the Navy readying for battle. As it is, they didn’t believe me. My squad’s all dead and gone, and the witness of my own eyes wasn’t evidence enough for them.” His low voice is tight with hurt and regret, and Asha isn’t sure whether she wants to poke at the wound or soothe him. She settles for pushing away from the wall, invading his space deliberately, not sure if she’s doing either or both.

“And why should they trust your eyes, Snow? Why should I?” He clutches at her arm, suddenly, and though she’s fairly confident she could throw him off – he doesn’t know the _Wind_ as she does, and she could twist him up hard against the railing just there with a bit of leverage – she doesn’t, letting him fix her with his stormy gray gaze.

“You don’t believe? And yet, here you are…” He looks up at the screen nearby, where the image of their travel path has receded into only two dimensions, as if assuring himself that they are indeed still heading for Callisto.

“Here we are,” Asha agrees, sliding the heel of her hand over his chest, and up to his neck, gently pressing her fingertips to the back of his head to turn his gaze back to her own.

“Your eyes are very pretty, Jon Snow, but as I said – we’ll see. Not just you. If Callisto’s as you expect – we’ll see.”

* * *

He hangs about, watching her door with purpose.

(She knows because her crew knows, and there is a healthy stream of wagers riding on the boy’s next move.)

But she’s a fair judge of these things, and she’s certain he’ll need just one more push to act on this thing between them.

(Qarl bets heavily on just such an outcome, mingling Asha’s money with his own, and gets a cut of Asha’s wager for his pains.)

“Snow.”

“Captain.”

She walks past his looming presence in the ship’s narrow hall, into his own small quarters, leaving him to follow in her wake, if he chooses.

He chooses.

(Two decks above mingled groans and cheers erupt as the two of them disappear into Snow’s quarters on the security camera footage. Various crew members express joy or despair as their wagers suddenly come due. Qarl’s ever-mild expression stands him in good stead as he collects from several unlucky bettors.)

Asha is unsurprised by the Spartan appearance of the tiny guest bunk – he only had a single pack when he boarded the ship, after all. But it’s as if no one has been living in the tiny room – the bed is perfectly made, and not a single personal possession is in view. In the cramped bunk they must stand very close, and when she turns to confront him, he’s well within reach.

“Some habits die hard, it appears. You can take the man out of the Marines, but can’t take the Marine out of the man.”

“I’d think you’d appreciate that,” he replies sharply. “I’ll be out of your way and your ship soon enough, and it’ll be as if I was never here. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Your fee, your peek at whatever’s ravaged Callisto, and your freedom?”

“You wound me, Marine.” Asha clutches a hand to her chest in mocking, put-upon shock.

“I’m not-“

“You are, you bloody fool. Every inch the soldier, full of noble sacrifice for the common good. Going to go fling himself headfirst into a pack of these alien “Others” and die full of noble thoughts about humanity and the Martian Dream.” Asha’s tone is sharp, and she steps fully into his space, chest to chest, poking a finger at him. He blinks, taken aback.

“You’ll get your money. I’ve guaranteed it, you know…”

“It’s not the money, Snow, it’s the damned waste of it all, and most of all y-“

He cuts her off with a kiss, his arms going around her swiftly, and she wastes not a moment in responding, pushing herself onto him, burying a hand in the hair at the nape of his neck, and pressing him bodily against the wall next to his obscenely neat bed. She bites at his lower lip sharply, and her grip on his hair tightens.

“You’re a fool,” she mutters into his mouth, following the words with her tongue. He groans in response, his hand falling from her back to the curve of her ass, and even she’s surprised when all he needs do is bend his knees a little to get his arm under her hip and lift her, carrying her all of two steps not to the bed, but to the locker wall on the far side of the bunk. Cold metal at her back, Asha tightens her grip in his hair, letting him press her into the wall, but tearing his head away from her own so that she can look down at him, expression smug.

“But a handsome fool,” she admits. Asha hitches her leg over his hip and grinds her hips sharply into his own, her smile widening as his eyes flutter shut and the hard lines of his mouth slacken in response. With a grunt of effort he hitches her up higher on the wall, pressing his nose between her breasts and inhaling as Asha laughs.

“You’re infuriating,” he groans into her chest.

“You do know how to compliment a woman, I’ll give you that,” she murmurs, rewarding him by pulling her shirt over her head in a smooth motion, baring her breasts and pressing them back into his face, dragging her short fingernails through his scruffy stubble and craning her neck to kiss him once more. “But do you know what to do now, Marine?”

Asha is pleasantly surprised when he sets her down smoothly and falls to his knees, his fingers at her hips, inching into the waist of her pants and a look of inquiry quirking his unscarred brow.

“Oh, I was right, you are quite the go-getter,” Asha crows, pressing her hips in his direction and helping him slip off her boots and pants in a hasty, nearly frenzied motion, and laughing breathlessly as Jon ducks under her leg, pushing it over his shoulder, and slips his fingers and tongue both between her thighs. He doesn’t bother to tease, thankfully – Asha might have yanked out his pretty hair if he had tried – instead he’s insistent, inventive, and thorough as he works her over, and she is coming faster than she would have ever imagined, moaning long and low and pressing Snow’s face into her sex fit to drown him, white knuckling his hair and shoulder.

He doesn’t seem bothered by a need to breathe, but then, he’s not so far impressed her with his survival skills.

When she’s finished shuddering her way through her orgasm, Asha gasps for breath, staring down at his flushed face, damp with exertion and her arousal, and licks her lips. She pulls him to his feet and smiles, kissing him once more, tasting herself and tasting his desperation. She’s just a little gentler than usual – less so than he probably deserves – as she pulls him to the narrow bunk with a pointed look.

“Come on, then, Marine. For that alone, you’re worth saving from a heroic and useless demise, but you look like you could use a reminder as to why you’re going to let me.”


End file.
